Page 10 of Love & Other Killers
I drop to my knees and slide on the polished wooden floor, colliding with Munster’s back as I sink Rowan’s blade into the side of his neck.
Every garbled breath. Every tremor in the steel. Every twitch of nerves that travels through my palm. Munster’s death in my hand brings me only one thing.Relief.
When the last lungful of air rattles past his lips, I pull the blade free, crimson blooming across the floor.
A moment later, Lark and Rose are crashing into me, squealing with delight. Lark presses gold stars on my cheeks. Rose hugs me so tight I can’t breathe. And when I rise to my feet, I face my husband, who might try to look disappointed at his loss, but he fails. His eyes are bright with pride as he reels me into an embrace.
“You might have cheated with that vacuum trick,” he says as I dig my fingers into his ribs, “but you deserve that win. Now let’s make you that web, Orb Weaver.”
And we do.
Rose and Fionn do a sweep for codeine before locking Barbara in the bathroom, and then they get to work cleaning with Lachlan. Rowan ties Munster’s body onto a chair in the center of the room and then gets up on the furniture to suspend the lines of the webs to the ceiling. Lark declares she has a crafting idea and sews fishing line into Munster’s arms and legs, integrating the dead man right into my art. And I work on taking the pieces I need and placing them onto my web. A slice of skin over the soleus muscle for Shawn Collins, a man Munster murdered two years ago. Another over the trapezius for Terri Bismark, a woman who vanished while hiking in Sproul Forest. A slice over the mylohyoid muscle for Martin Jeoffries. Then I finally take Allan Munster’s eyes, starting with the left, fixing them both into the web.
“What’s that?” Rowan asks as I string the last item into my masterpiece. Martin Jeoffries’s hyoid. I place it right next to the skin I sliced from Munster’s throat.
“The bone of a guy he killed,” I reply, tying the last knot before standing back to survey our work. “Do you think the FBI will figure it out this time? That I left them a web?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I dunno. But I am sure about one thing.”
“Let me guess. That we should call it a draw.”
Rowan chuckles. “No, love.” He drops an arm across my shoulders, and I lean into his warmth as he presses a kiss to the crown of my head. “That they’ll marvel at the Orb Weaver. My goddess of chaos.”
Chapter 6
Lavish
I’m surprised you’re not doing more to celebrate,” Rowan says as he enters the bedroom from the en suite, drying his hair with a towel. Another is slung low across his hips, droplets of water trickling down the expanse of muscle of his bare chest.
“You’re still green,” I reply, forcing my gaze from his ridiculous body and back down to the phone in my hand. “I feel like it would be unfair if I celebratetoomuch.”
He stops in the center of the room and rubs the towel on his face, pulling it away to examine the white fibers under the light. “But I scrubbed so hard.”
“Maybe it really is permanent.”
“Blackbird—”
“It’sfine,” I say, lowering my phone. “You’re still pretty. You’ll always be pretty. Even if you look a bit like that nausea emoji.”
“No.Noooo.I don’t want to look like that. I hate that emoji.”
“Should have thought of that before you used the poster paint on your face.”
I keep my grin aimed at my device as the mattress dips. A moment later, Rowan is draped across my legs, staring up at me with puppy dog eyes. “Why do you wound me, Blackbird?”
“Maybe because you insist on attempting to roll out that Peaches nickname?”
“I don’t know what you mean—”
“You used ittoday—”
“I was just testing to see if you want to switch up your nicknames a bit. You know, try out something new.”
“No fucking thank you,” I mutter, refocusing on my screen.
Rowan heaves a dramatic sigh and props his head up, his arm braced across my thighs and his cheek cradled against his fist. “What’s up with you?”
“What do you mean?”
